What! Another blog post? Don't you have anything else to do with your life, lady? Aren't you supposed to be packing, moving . . .writing a novel . . .??? And what's with the silly pic of Einstein?
Well yes my friends, I do have a lot going on, but this is my writing for now. And my teens are writing their novellas so . . .
I am thinking more about my visit down to General Seminary with Heather the other day. We were talking about some of our insecurities in our choice to live an artist's life, about how it has taken us longer to accept who we are, comparing ourselves to others who are successful in a more conventional way. Is it the "right" way? As a child, teen, and young adult, I often felt "wrong" about so many things. But I didn't use language or approach the world in the same way the people around me did.
I think in abstracts and stare at things from peculiar angles. I've often looked at my ability to see all sides of a situation or an argument as a weakness, rather than a strength, because then I have a difficult time "winning".
But do I really want to "win"?
We were talking about how people who are CERTAIN that their point of view is "right", have intimidated us into thinking then, that our point of view must be "wrong".
That's on me, giving my power away, not on others taking it from me.
Heather shared a story about a famous argument between Einstein and Bohr that I haven't been able to stop thinking about, and she JUST sent me the source, prompting this post! It is from QUANTUM: Einstein, Bohr, and the Great Debate About the Nature of Reality, By Manjit Kumar
In the late 1970s, I had the pleasure of talking with John Bell about the Bohr- Einstein debates during a train journey from Oxford to London. Every seat was taken, so we had to stand. Pressed against me by sullen commuters, Bell summarized his apparently reluctant conclusion as we pulled into Paddington station: “Bohr was inconsistent, unclear, willfully obscure and right. Einstein was consistent, clear, down-to-earth and wrong.
And then I think of the poem that my dad sent me when I was in a painful place: In the place where we are right, no flowers grow . . . and thanks to the internet, I've found the poem!
The Place Where We Are Right
by Yehuda Amichai
From the place where we are right
Flowers will never grow
In the spring.
The place where we are right
Is hard and trampled
Like a yard.
But doubts and loves
Dig up the world
Like a mole, a plow.
And a whisper will be heard in the place
Where the ruined
House once stood.
'Nuff said.
Oh wait! Heather, my wise friend, just sent me another jewel: Your task, is not to seek for love but merely to find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. Rumi
See you tomorrow, when I promise to blog about the meeting I'm having with my publicist after work!
